


Les Liaisons féminines

by laCommunarde



Category: Les liaisons dangereuses | Dangerous Liaisons - Choderlos de Laclos
Genre: Epistolary, F/F, Mentor/Protégé, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Yuletide, Yuletide 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 17:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17006271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laCommunarde/pseuds/laCommunarde
Summary: Does the Marquise de Merteuil have to do everything herself? On second thought, doing everything herself might not be such a bad idea.





	Les Liaisons féminines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theoldgods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoldgods/gifts).



My dear Vicomte:

From the moment I took the little Volanges to the opera, I have been thoroughly intrigued with her. She is, as I stated in my previous letter, utterly without artifice; and yet she has the face for the cleverest of deceits. She also is blessed with the naïve tendency to grab hold of the person next to her and run her fingers up and down their arm with the gentlest of caresses, which, though completely naïve, nonetheless, could be trained into the most beautiful caresses against men’s hungers if properly directed to drive them mad. I wonder what a creature she would be if she was aware of her effect.

I believe I shall undertake her tutelage. In this way, Gercourt will still be made to suffer as he will recognize my handiwork in her every coquettish gesture, and will fear whoever his new wife is flirting with behind his back, or even in front of him, given how friendly she is with everyone we come across and how easily one such as Gercourt might mistake her outgoing nature for flirtation. As for your revenge against Madame de Volanges, that too shall be granted as the daughter gains a reputation amongst the male sex of being a little coquet. And should she decide to carry Gercourt’s child, he and all the men of his acquaintance will surely whisper about whether it is actually Gercourt’s. It will be all up to her, mind you, for I will be as a good tutor and teach her the ways to avoid such troublesome things. Perhaps she will determine she should continue the line of Danceny instead – if the young idiot will ever take the necessary steps to secure his love – Gercourt will no doubt have no idea if the child is his or not and might even discuss his fears with the mother. Either way, it would take a less observant woman even then Madame de Volanges to miss the whispers and discussions around the subject of her daughter. And she will know it and still not be able to speak lest she shame her daughter and son-in-law.

So, you see, my dear Vicomte, that we will both get our revenge if I take up the little Volanges; and she will give me the pleasure of molding her to my teaching, and she will blossom eagerly under my tutelage.

Follow your Presidente, for all the folly it brings you, and I shall tend to your problems with Madame de Volanges. I shall meet with the little Volanges again to begin my teachings tomorrow afternoon. May you have made progress or given up by then!

Marquise de Mertreuil

Aug 28, 17 –

 

My dear Vicomte:

All is set with the little Volanges. The mother agreed easily and gratefully to my proposal to mentor her daughter in the proper behavior of women – almost to the point of fawning over me – such are the benefits of reputation. Perhaps – dear Vicomte – taking an interest in repairing yours would do you favorably in your aspirations towards your prude. But either you will or you won’t – it scarcely matters to me.

The mother agreed that I should take out the little Volanges for one or two hours once a day and tutor her in proper behavior becoming of a young lady. The irony is not lost on me that mothers throw their children at me with the thought that I am best to preserve their virtue and mold them into loyal, little wives subservient to their husbands’ every desire, as though I would do such a thing even were it a good match and even were the gentleman in question one of those rare sweet and half competent individuals who means not a wrong in the world and not the likes of Gercourt, whose male ego is already big enough without need of my efforts to build it even larger.

So I shall train the little Volanges into the “perfect” wife for Gercourt, a wife with a talent for manipulation and a knowledge of the mannerisms needed to get one’s way, which Gercourt will no doubt remember from me and fear for his wife’s fidelity. I will also encourage her to show a little more discretion with her Danceny, that we may get enjoyment out of making Gercourt an utter wreck of a man wondering whether she is loyal or not, until finally he approaches the mother and voices his worry, so they both may be worried over her as she responds with perfect manners. You see how I am taking care of both of our worries with this – Mme. de Volanges will pay as well for what she did to your hopes with your little prude in addition to Gercourt for ending it with me.

Yours should you make any progress with your efforts with the prude,

Marquise de Merteuil

Aug 29, 17 -

 

My dear Vicomte:

The little Volanges is truly a delight! I rode around in my carriage with her as appointed this afternoon and taught her where to put her hands and arrange her face for maximum effect on your sex. She promptly leaned back, her mouth forming a little o. I, thinking I had shocked the poor innocent, let her be to gather her thoughts and hopefully make something of them. Then, however, the little creature sat up abruptly and curled her fingers around my arm with one hand while playing with that little spot you know well on the side of my neck, smirking like a kitten that got the cream all the while.

I smiled back, of course, to encourage her. However, if the little creature thinks to try my whiles on me, she has opened herself up to me using them on her.

It appears I will get some amusement out of the arranged a daily outing with the little Volanges (with the creature’s mother, so said to complete her training in social graces necessary to one of Gercourt’s class) after all. The mother was again overjoyed at the prospect, all aflutter at having her little one trained by one of such grace and reputation above reproach as me. I must say, if I was one to find amusement at such things, I take great delight in the thought that my reputation is of one who is not interested in the other sex at all! Therefore, I have leave to spend time alone with the little creature and train her into something Gercourt will recognize is mine and will recognize thoroughly that I can break him whenever I choose.

How do your efforts with your little prude go? Has she given in to your torments or is she still insisting you leave her be to her no doubt dull life?

Marquise de Merteuil

Aug 30, 17 –

 

My dear Vicomte:

You must forgive me not having written, Vicomte, but much is still the same with you from your last three reports. Still you pursue; still your Presidente flees. If I didn’t know you better, I should almost say you were in love with the idea of courtly love itself, of wooing your little prude and making her blush, and had given up thought of actual conquest. It would really be a shame to lose you to that foolishness. Write to me again on the subject when you have achieved something more than the continual flirting of two children. The two of you make the little Volanges and her Danceny look like they are moving along quickly towards their fulfillment!

Speaking of the little creature, this week I have been teaching her how to play with men’s fancies. Beware, Vicomte, for now she can use the naïve little gestures to great advantage, and made use of the gestures with such fluidity that a young man accidentally ran a horse into a cart of apples, so busy was he looking at she who made bedroom eyes and faintly blew a kiss in his direction.

Tomorrow, I shall endeavor to teach her better control of her expressions, so they shall not betray their owner.

Marquise de Merteuil

Sept 6, 17 -

 

My Dear Vicomte: 

The child Danceny is really quite enervating and rude and as impatient as a farmhand in heat. In fact, he reminds me a little of someone, always pleading and disconsolate when he doesn't get what he assumes is his rightful reassurance that the little creature still adores him back, with no concern over her safety and care in sending him her letters at all. 

She brought his most recent letter to me yesterday, evidently upset by something within it, and gave me leave to read it and all the others. Reading it, he really is demanding and manipulative without justification. It won't do for my pupil nor my plans for the child. I expressed surprise at how unkind he was being towards her and bade her bring me his other letters so as to read them for more of these cruel demands that she write to him immediately or he will think she no longer loves him, even going so far as to insult her character when she spends what he perceives as too long in between letters.

I told her to leave the letters with me (I will teach her tomorrow the prudence of burning the letters) and to let him write. He won't tire of her soon, I am certain. And then told her to scold him when he got too demanding. Is our affection not ours to give out as we see fit, not your sex's to demand? The precious child laughed when I explained that one must train men to heel like one trains dogs, lest they slobber all over you when it is terribly inconvenient. I can hear your protestations from here, dear Vicomte, and yet can you deny it? If you little prude had an ounce of sense, she would be doing the same to you and telling you to wait with the guarantee of some reward or other if you do. Indeed, there are many a reward that would suffice and would not be too dear to her to give.

The little child is writing her letter to him now,  scolding him for trying to get her into trouble with his demanded urgency and reminding him one must have some level of discretion if one is to keep up the secrecy of their affair. I have bidden her bring it here when she is done so I can review it before she sends it out.

For now, Vicomte, I anticipate some forward movement from you with your little prude, for she has no sense or skill whatsoever to ward off your advances and merely has you getting cold feet to thank for you not having her.

Marquise de Metreuil 

 

My darling Vicomte:

Today my darling, little pupil asked me while in the middle of our lessons about Gercourt, if he was really as horrible as I had described, and if so, why her mother had chosen him for her. I must admit instead of disabusing our little one of her adorable notions about her mother as you might have done, that I opted instead to take my time around such a tender topic. I explained that he was wealthy, which sufficed for a lot in maternal concerns, making sure one’s offspring are financially well-off and will not live in destitution. One must play carefully when dealing with someone’s mother: often even those who speak ill of them will protect them by any means, even above previously trusted companionships. For me to say Mme. de Volanges was thinking only of herself in the arrangement, possibly even hoping to gain the affections of her future son-in-law for herself, would have been too much to say directly or indirectly at this point. However, that is what I am building to hint; therefore, know I have been taking care of your interests as well in this scheme.

 I told my little pupil that it wasn’t so much that he was horrible in any fashion – neither stingy nor abusive nor overly needy nor inattentive – merely that he was selfish and a liar and very bad in bed.

On the mention of bed, my little pupil colored her face and décolletage so much that I was worried she might faint of lightheadedness. She murmured softly that she knew nothing about the finer art of what one does in the bedroom.

I gasped and told her that nobody taught girls these things – they were simply expected to know it – and told her that it was getting rather late in her engagement to begin, wasn’t it?

The little curious one smiled up at me and used some of my training to plead with me to teach her, for how could one be expected to simply know a thing if no one taught you. “Your mother will be aghast if she finds out you have asked me for this favor,” I insisted.

“Please,” she repeated and played with her nail along my collarbone.

“Only if you don’t tell anyone. I would hate for you to become the latest gossip and a shame to your mother and name,” and she nodded and promised.

I look forward to teaching my darling pupil about proper behavior in the bed.

On another note, I hear your Presidente has run away. Do you need me to take on another project for you too and coax her back to you?

Marquise de Merteuil 

 

Dearest Vicomte:

The darling little creature did not know it was possible to cause a woman so much pleasure she cries out and shudders. Well, my dear Vicomte, her ignorance in this regard has been corrected!

She had come to me once again for our little lessons. And I’d decided to start her on the rather tricky part of my regime – how to control one’s expression regardless of what one is thinking or feeling.

While I went through it painfully, teaching myself by using a candle and a pin while maintaining a smile on my face or changing my expression to be one of calm demeanor or merely as one reading a book on a settee, I do not think this method will teach her best in the least amount of time. Therefore, I have determined that she is to keep her face believably consistent while doing other things.

Her ability to keep her expression was far from the best today. When she was all but done, she had tears in her eyes and was grasping at my hands and hair and her own dress and whispered pleadings at me until she cried out. It was a picture I will not soon forget.

I am writing this while she recovers and then will go explain that she must have better control over her face, even when in the throws of pleasure.

Marquise de Merteuil

 

Dearest Vicomte: 

The child has become wise to my efforts. I was making her shudder while under instructions to keep a straight face and not blush – and may I announce that though she is good at keeping a straight face, with the only hint being her head slightly thrown back and her eyes half closed, she is absolutely atrocious at not flushing a beautiful pink – when she rolled over to view me more clearly and observed, “You aren’t nearly as good as Maman makes you out to be. Oh, you are good to me, don’t get me wrong! But I doubt Maman knew you’d be teaching me half of what you are.”

I paused in crooking my fingers against her bud and surveyed her. “And if so, what then? Will you flee to your Maman’s skirts and endeavor to forget all I have taught you? Will you tell her, sweet child, what we have been doing?”

I was certain to place a little emphasis on “doing” so that it left no room for doubt that I meant both doing and sexual intercourse. The little pupil understood and her blush deepened.

“I won’t tell, of course! Where would that get me, back to having no knowledge of even if I am to be married and to whom, back to having no knowledge at all how to do things that women can do? I just want to tell you that I know you aren’t half as pure as Maman makes you seem to be to everyone! And…” she paused and cast her eyes down then gazed up at me through her eyelashes – the coy little minx – “I like it.”

I made certain she soon after lost all control over her facial expressions.

Marquise de Merteuil

 

Dearest Vicomte:

My darling has so exceeded expectations that I am at a loss for words! Her tenderness and delicacy are matched only by her playfulness, which she wields with a mischievousness that borders on wickedness now she has full knowledge of what she does with her little touches and caresses.

She brought me to lose myself, and then not satisfied with making me cry out in pleasure merely once, she brought me to ecstasy again and again, each time in a different and novel way, all the while watching my face with those inquisitive eyes of hers as I showed her how to do when watching a man and with the tiny changes of expression I showed her when teaching her to mind she never shows her own strong emotions.

With those big, dark eyes of hers, drinking in my pleasure as surely as she did with her tongue, her fingers and her lips, she watched and learned from every ecstasy, what effect her tongue had on the inside of my legs, on the little mound of nerves you liked so much while the two of us came together last, on the sensitive tips of my breasts, on my neck right below my ears, and her fingers and her teeth as well. Each change rewarded her hungry eyes and ears with a sigh until she drove me apart. 

My dear Vicomte, the little darling has excelled!

Marquise de Merteuil

 

Dearest Victome:

My darling exclaimed yesterday, as we lay together in my bed, that she wished she didn't need to get married, so that we could spend the rest of our lives together. I chided her gently on not saying such statements when she didn't need to use them. However, she leaned up on her arm, and I saw that she meant it. While many a man has said those words to me and meant them, for some reason, it is different when this child says it. I had to sigh and look away.

She expressed a desire to be free, free as she was neither in her current unmarried state nor would be once married, and I could hear her longing as she asked how I had managed it. I answered her, as I will now tell you, that I was married off when I was young to a much older man who fell ill not long after and died, leaving his grieving widow his fortune, title and estate. As I was free to do as I liked and had no one to mentor me through my as of yet unformed methods of discretion, I did get into a little trouble regarding my reputation following his death. However, that was quickly covered up when I learned that by learning the secrets of the men I slept with, I could guarantee they would rather take our affair to the grave than dare tell a soul. Indeed, what could be dismissed as the indiscretions of youth served to better my reputation now.

The little darling sighed and said, "Oh, for such luck!" and then buried her face in my nightclothes again.

I pet her hair and reassured her that if she followed my advice, she could live rather freely while married, and certainly she would not be expected to sleep with Gercourt every night, as he very often was away from home at parties and friends' estates. Nonetheless, this did not seem to cheer her, despite my wishes that it should.

I do wish my words would cheer her back to her usual mischievous self!

Marquise de Merteuil

 

Dearest Vicomte:

My darling and I had a desperate liaison today, where we both sought to bring the other to pleasure so often it hurt. Neither of us discussed it but I am certain she was thinking as well as I about the nearness of her marriage date.

I hope your efforts have achieved happier ends than mine!

Marquise de Merteuil 

 

My Dear Vicomte:

What shall I do? As certain as I am that my darling will do herself proud with Gercourt, the thought of him having her just seems to eat away at my every waking thought and fill me with a dread that makes me suffer horrible. Last night, I had no appetite for dinner and had to retire early. This morning, I could only stomach a small amount of coffee, so full of the feeling that he must not have her.

And yet everything says she must go. She has been my pupil, my dearest pupil, and now she knows all she needs to know to live her life as freely as one can under marriage. She may take up her affair in earnest with Danceny, or may bestow her affections on some other, more deserving individual, gaining his confidence with her easy mannerisms, now more under her direction, on a secret he desperately doesn’t want society to know, so that she may threaten him with it should he ever even fancy telling the world about their affair. I should be proud to see her graduate my training and use her newfound skills on the male sex as ruthlessly as I would do if I had a mentor in my system of thought at her age.

Yet I feel that none are worthy of her, and she is still so young – what if she falls in love mistakenly with one of them and even though they can do her no societal damage, they break her heart?

Oh Vicomte – why do I feel so wretched about letting her go?

Marquise de Merteuil

 

Dearest Vicomte:

The fated day has arrived. I had already been granted the honor of walking her over to Gercourt at the rehearsal. As she curtseyed and he took her hand and brushed the back of it with his lips - his fancy, he thinks it makes all the young women blush and flutter, and indeed, my lovely dear would have had it not been for my training; now she only cast down her eyes and glanced up at him through her lustrious eyelashes, those eyelashes that scarcely an inch of me doesn't have intimate knowledge of - his eyes fell across me, his little wife's companion, and I saw at that moment that I had won, that he was afraid of what his new wife might do behind his back with the secrets she would gain. But even as I felt that, it seemed but a shallow and empty victory. I was giving her away as promised, and I felt sick with it. I would rather... what? What would I rather? How can I wish she could stay with me forever, the two of us intertwined in my bed or hers. I wish I could protect her and that she could delight me with her little witty comments and observations. I had to rush from the room to be ill lest I witness their marriage and there I found tears threatened to spill over my eyes.

Oh God, Vicomte, how has it come to this that I am heartbroken unto sickness at the thought of giving her away?

Do not fall into affection, Vicomte. Guard your heart against it.

Marquise de Merteuil

 

The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil

I applaud your remarkable success in making a dangerous minx out of the little hapless child! I had no idea all throughout your letters on the subject that this was your goal. Now I see that it couldn't have been anything else. Truly, a remarkable revenge, though remind me of it before I seek your bed again, my dear Merteuil! I would not want to wrong you if that should be the nature of your vengeance!

In your last letter, you wrote to me of tears, such that even I was persuaded you did not want her to marry. Was it for the benefit of someone watching or your own personal pleasure? The Gercourt wedding, I have been told, was quite the affair. No stone unturned, no livre skimped, the delicate, little thing dressed to a splendour that would make Mme. Pompadour jealous! And you, all but weeping in the corridor outside the chamber!

And then, just today, I received word of the death of Gercourt! The little bride atremble about someone in the house, perhaps a wedding guest or someone else, come to murder them both! Broken glass and upturned vases confirmed the little bride's reports of a stranger - a robber or a murderer - come into the house and having left the grim scene of the man himself with a dagger stabbed between his ribs. Tell me, Merteuil, was it you or she who did the deed? I imagine it must have been her, as your last letter was addressed from your country house.

Congratulations on the new young widow you have released into the world, so like yourself at that age that she cannot help but gravitate to you! That way, you may better enjoy each other's company and devise the downfall of many a hapless man! When shall I call on you two merry murderesses? And where shall I call, Mme. de Gercourt or yours?

Alas, on the matter of the Presidente, she bores me now that I have stolen my kiss. Her tears whenever I come in are upsetting my aunt besides. I am ready to rejoin Parisian society, or perhaps join you and the new widow, if you will have me. I promise to spice up your affairs with my usual charms.

Congratulations until we write again!

Vicomte de Valmont 


End file.
